"Be the change you want to see"

Self-Reflection (Knowing Yourself)

To me, the first steps to personal growth are self-reflection and self-love. I’ve always said that if you don’t know yourself or love yourself how can you truly grow into the person you’re longing to become? So this post is dedicated to self-reflection, or what I like to call it, knowing yourself.

I define self-reflection as knowing yourself because, during the process of reflecting you learn things you never knew about yourself, you find information that surprises you or even information that disappoints you. When your self-reflecting is finished you come out knowing more about yourself than ever and you work to correct the attributes that you particularly do not admire.

This part of personal growth is essential to the entire process because if you don’t acknowledge what area, or areas, that need to be fixed then how are you suppose to grow in any form? And that’s when you start reflecting, and you continue to reflect until YOU feel like you’ve found enough about yourself to help you excel.

There are multiple reasons as to why people start this process of their lives, from losing themselves and wanting to find out who they are again or never knowing themselves and wanting to find out who they are period. And there is nothing wrong with either one of these reasons.

The best way to start your self-reflection is to spend time with yourself. In order to really know who you are, you have to learn how to enjoy your own company! It is okay to schedule in some time for yourself in order for you to discover what you like, love, or even what you don’t like or love. Learn to take care of yourself!

During your reflection, you will find out certain things (as mentioned before) that you either like or don’t like. If you come across a trait of yours that you don’t like, write it down! That way you know that is something that needs fixing. Do not give up because of the flaws in your personality because nobody is perfect! Let your flaws be your motivation in this step of personal growth and let it be your motivation throughout your entire journey!

I had the pleasure of speaking with an alumnus of Radford University, Bruce Baker, and his experience with self-reflection, he stated that his self-reflection started with his family and college.

Here’s the full story!

“When it comes to personal growth, I never really understood it, at first. grew up in a household where everyone around me was stagnant, mentally, with what was going on around them. So unintentionally, I thought this was how life worked. It wasn’t until I got to college that I realized that didn’t apply. No one in my immediate family wanted growth for themselves, they just wanted growth for others. Which is fine, but in order to fully support growth in someone else, you must first fully support growth within yourself. I’m not talking down to my family because they are all smart people. It’s just we have a tendency to put everyone else in the spotlight and forget the main person. Yourself.

College taught me brutally if you don’t grow up on all levels you’ll fall behind, quick. I didn’t want to fail out, nor did I want to disappoint my family. So, I rose to the occasion and I graduated with my degree, first in my family. I say this because this was the biggest step I’ve taken towards growth. With everything I was faced with, all the uncomfortable moments, I grew smarter, wiser. From not knowing how I was going to pay food some nights, no means of transportation to a college 3.5 hours away from home. It was rough, no doubt. I look back on that now and see the difference between the person I was then, to the person I am now, and I pat myself on the back. I deserve it.

Now I want to share the knowledge and experience with my family, friends and those who are willing to listen. By the grace of God, I’m still standing and walking. I’m healthy mentally, physically, and spiritually. I know it’s all because I took time to not let life decide what it was going to do to me, instead, the opposite. Which is, to me, where growth begins”